Five Threesomes Zuko Never Had
by may flyer
Summary: Five alternate universes. Five threesomes Zuko never had.
1. Weapons

**Five Threesomes Zuko Never Had**

Author's Note/Disclaimer: Avatar belongs to a group of people who'd never ever write the main characters into a threesome. Shocking!

This fic was written for my _Tinderbox_ beta Rawles, and full credit goes to her for the idea behind part of scenario #2.

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_I. Weapons_

When Zuko regained consciousness his limbs were numb and heavy, sinking down into the futon like so much dead weight. A strip of cloth bound his tongue and shackled his breath. The fire was beyond his grasp. Helplessly, Zuko wriggled on his stomach; felt the drool congeal around his lips and soak into the pillow the propped up his jaw.

The morning after was not supposed to be this way.

Warm thighs straddled his waist and the sensation would evoke a dizzying array of new memories, if only the person doing the straddling had not yanked his head back by the hair. When she pressed her knife against his throat he could feel the edge of the blade shaking against the skin of his neck.

"It's okay, Mai. I'm here too," the other girl said encouragingly. Her voice dripped with the milk of human kindness. Naked flesh brushed against Zuko's side. He could see the acrobat lay a comforting hand on Mai's hip – a distorted reflected on the brass lamp-fittings above. "I… bought some sandalwood. We can cleanse our chakra later."

Zuko wanted to scream and rage and kick out. He did not. Stripped of all else, he still had his pride.

Ty Lee's voice went quiet. Gentle, even. The sound lulled Zuko into contempt.

"This is what we trained for. You know that."

Mai's breath was erratic, but her knife-hand steadied. In the end that was all that truly mattered.


	2. Patriarch

**II. Patriarch **

Zuko was the Fire Lord. Courtiers bowed at the shadow of his presence, mighty armies stood at his beck and call, and his name was known and feared at every corner of the earth. This room, the palace connected to it, the island it was built upon, and everything living therein were his property by divine right. Commoners produced big impressive khon dances illustrating his legendary exploits, for performance during major festivals. He was a dignified figure respected by all.

None of this did anything whatsoever to dissuade his second wife from trying to rub strange herbal concoctions into his beard.

"Stop that," Zuko swatted at Ty Lee. It was hard for him to maintain a poor mood in the morning. His blood boiled with energy. The sun was telling him to rise and shine and order people about.

"You don't mean that!" Ty Lee easily evaded him. "This crushed amber in linseed oil will totally to the lightning element of Agni's threefold spirit. And I added aloe for healthy follicles!"

"_I'm sleeping_," Zuko's other wife complained, from where she'd dragged the covers over her head to shut out the morning light. Zuko was unsure why it was necessary for her to kick him in the shins when Ty Lee was the one making noise. Still, he wisely took the gashes her nails made in his calves without complaint. Marriage to trained assassins had taught him a lot about forbearance and timing.

"Aw, Mai you don't mind! You _luuuuuurve_ us," Ty Lee teased loudly. She was wrapped around Zuko like a limpet. He couldn't say that he objected to that, even if his facial hair felt frightfully greasy.

Things like this were always happening when he slept in Ty Lee's room. Sleeping in Mai's room usually ended up oblique threats upon his life. Zuko's room was rarely slept in at all, because his wives said that he had no taste, though Zuko had no idea what was so offensive about it. Zukos' room was peaceful. It wasn't full of unnecessary, cluttery crap, unlike the quarters that certain other people in this marriage maintained.

"I do _not_ love you when you keep me awake in the morning," Mai bitched.

"Sure you do," Ty Lee retorted over Mai's groan of protest. She wriggled in Zuko's lap and grinned a big cheesy grin. "Just like you don't mind trying my new ointment! _Truuuuuuueeee luuuuurve _conquers all. I've read _all _the Vedas so I know it's right."

Zuko had to concede that he bore a certain amount of affection towards what was going on his groin at the moment.

"Shut up, Ty Lee. I mean it." Mai tried to burrow further into the futon. This was probably the most inflection that she would show all day.

At that point Zuko made the tactical decision to lift Ty Lee by the hips – not hard, she was so light that she was breakable and Zuko had never let go of his training – and set her down on Mai's midsection. He could take a cold bucket of water to the crotch if needs be.

"I need to arrange something with the Exchequer. I'll return in a moment," Zuko excused himself, so as to pin the brewing squall on his wives and avoid all personal censure. He stood and then headed down the hallway to the bathroom.

When Mai first insisted upon a polygamist dual marriage – in the style of Fire Lord Sozin – the old-fashioned soldier in Zuko had been understandably scandalized. For months he was unable to let go of lingering fear that his paramours were secretly lesbians, plotting behind his back. He hadn't known how to tell if a woman was faking her orgasms and there wasn't anyone he was willing to ask.

Zuko looked over his shoulder and saw Ty Lee tussling with a murderous-looking Mai. He'd come back once the two of them had worn all the irritation out of one another and were feeling more pliable.

In retrospect, he could see the wisdom in the traditions of his forefathers.


	3. Alchemy

**III. Alchemy**

Zuko has little recollection of the first time that it happened. He remembers standing beside her at the funeral pyre, so close that their fingertips brushed, when he into existence the flame that would devour Mai's body. The other rebels remained for a few respectful minutes of silence before heading back to their posts. Fallen comrades were dime-a-dozen. There was still a war to be fought.

Zuko and Ty Lee stayed until the wind robbed them of the very last wisp of her ashes.

The midnight hour had already passed by the time that they staggered back to camp. Only they didn't stagger all the way back, because it was cold without her there.

Months later they have become more deliberate. Calculated. Practiced. Ty Lee's voice is too loud and Zuko's hands are too large yet somehow they always manage. Zuko can be as distant as Ty Lee wants and Ty Lee can be as sharp as Zuko needs.

Neither of them pay much attention to the rumors that swirl about them like dead leaves. They are not troubled when strangers stare at the bruises circling Ty Lee's wrists, or the tracery of long shallow cuts on Zuko's back. Their rituals are their own.

Under cloak of darkness, daggers in-hand, what would be a tawdry affair by light of day transmutes into a sacred act.

They have found a formula to raise the dead.


	4. Benefits

**IV. Benefits**

This state dinner should have been no different from any other state dinner. The Fire Lord would listen intently to the plights of various aristocratic factions and the Fire Lady would sit back and observe various internecine machinations that her husband hadn't the will to care about. Business as usual.

Only this time, the business wasn't so usual. Mai held her usual seat at his left, but the senior chancellor who usually set up camp at his right had been displaced by this evening's special guest. Lady Ty Lee was back in town for the first time in the months since the wedding. She was taking a short respite from her performance and public relations tour of the Earth Kingdom.

Lady Ty Lee was taking advantage of the break to visit her oldest and best friend. She was also, apparently, more than a little interested in using her left hand to investigate the contours of his thigh under the table.

The Fire Lord choked on his liquor.

Once he came back to his senses, Zuko's gaze turned to his bemused-looking spouse. He wondered, idly, which one of them would end up stabbed before this night was through. If he were a betting man he'd wager on himself. Fate took pleasure in his suffering.

Zuko's life had gotten a lot more complicated since he'd realized he was primarily attracted to people with the capacity to maul him. He still vividly recollected the conversation where he'd stumbled across that particular revelation. Oh, how Uncle had laughed and laughed.

Zuko hadn't found anything funny about it then and he didn't find anything funny about it now.

"Mai," he muttered under his breath, before grabbing his wife's hand under the table and guiding it to where Ty Lee was feeling up his leg. That was the only way he could think of to communicate his desire to live through the night without creating a scandal.

"Shush, dear," Mai murmured discreetly.

Zuko tensed. His wife only called him 'dear' when she was being dangerously ironic.

Mai motioned with her spare arm for one of the servants to fetch new bottles of huangjiu. Once the servers had finished distributing the new aperitif, Mai raised her glass.

"A toast," Mai said laconically. All eyes were fixed on the ordinarily taciturn Fire Lady. She rarely spoke at these events when she wasn't given a pressing reason to do so. The edges of her eyes crinkled with that Zuko had learned to recognize as amusement. "To my dear friend, Lady Ty Lee. I think that she'll be as good of a friend to my husband as she is to me."

The toast was duly completed, after which the table exploded into murmuring and gossip. Everyone was trying to figure out what political message the Fire Lady had been trying to send with that little display. Was the Lady Ty Lee being groomed for a position on the War Council?

If she _was_, Zuko would certainly like to know about it. He himself was completely in the dark as to what that had been all about.

Sensing his confusion, Mai rolled her eyes and shoved Ty Lee's hand further up his leg. The acrobat winked at him and then giggled into her wine. What kind of _friend_ would…

Oh.

_Ooooh_.

Mai _had_ told him that Ty Lee was something of a free spirit.

Zuko drained his glass and manfully waited for the dinner to end.


	5. Inheritor

**V. Inheritor**

They stand at either side of him, inscrutable as statues.

Zuko can barely see his supplicant through the curtain of flame and that, perhaps, is the greatest triumph of all.

"My Lord," Azula spits. On her knees. A hazy outline – weak and unreal. Zuko could snuff her life out at any moment. "My Lord. I have performed as you asked. Another year of meditation within the confines of Jashin Prison."

His servants do not move, blink, or breathe without his permission. Now is no exception. They look ahead, blankly. Until the Fire Lord orders otherwise Azula is invisible to their eyes.

The Council married Zuko off, not too long ago, to a young woman of advantageous breeding from the northern isle. Her existence is irrelevant to this situation. Zuko's marriage is irrelevant to most things. Had his wife not understood this from the beginning, Zuko might have pitied her - or himself.

But the idealism was burnt out of him a long time ago. In its place were two women whose hearts he'd never know, even as he understood that they'd follow him into hell.

Unless someone stronger came along.

"Duly noted. Under the advisement of my council, I hereby order that you continue to persue spiritual enlightenment in the confines of your new home."

Mai and Ty Lee make no argument. They make no motion at all.

Azula produces a low, whining noise in the back of her throat, like a beaten dog. Zuko ignores it. He's got living proof that there's nothing of Azula's he can't take.

Zuko is uncertain if this vengeance belongs to the Fire Lord, or the shadows that flank his throne.


End file.
